Can we take a moment to hand it to brothers – and others – who ensure we keep going?
Reading Lloyd Goodrich’s short, wonderful bio of Winslow Homer, I came across this warming little ancecdote:
“His first paintings, begun when he was 26, were of the war. One of the earliest showed a soldier being punished for drunkenness, of which Homer himself said in later years, ‘It is about as beautiful and interesting as a button on a barn door.’ This and another oil he placed in an exhibition, and declared that if they were not sold he would give up painting and take a full-time job with Harper’s. His elder brother Charles, who acted as his guardian angel throughout his life, bought them secretly – a fact which Winslow did not discover until years later, when he was so angry he did not speak to Charles for weeks.”
Thank you, Charles. What we would have lost without your generous fraternity!
PS – The painting is the well-known “Crack the Whip” which depicts some boys who surely must be brothers having a rowdy good time.
